The Assessment Process (Part 4)
We use this box to make important points or to keep you up to date with any recent changes.
Could you foster Patrice and Annakay?
We are looking for foster carers for Patrice and Annakay. Could you be their new foster carers? Why not find out more?
The Assessment Form (continued) Part 2.
This part of the form details your attitudes and life experiences relevant to fostering a child. Your agency social worker and you are required to:
1. Provide information on your background.
Your parents, siblings and other significant family members. What is the significance of culture and religion in an individual's upbringing, and what are your views on your own upbringing and the impact that has had on you? What are your attitudes to and experience of people with disabilities? Describe your experience of education and work (including unpaid or voluntary work) and your attitude to work and to unemployment. What effect, for example, could unemployment have on family life? Detail your interests and talents, followed by how you perceive yourself - your personality, racial and cultural identity, strengths and weaknesses.
2. Describe your partnership (if any) and how that partnership works.
What qualities do the partners bring to the relationship, what makes it positive for each of you, how do you support each other, how do you cope with problems? How might fostering a child affect this relationship - for example, how will you cope with a child who becomes attached readily to one partner and much more slowly to the other? How are decisions made between the partners, and is there wider family involvement in the decision-making process? What are the strengths and vulnerabilities of the partnership? Have there been previous significant relationships, and if so what has been learnt from these. Do they affect the present partnership? Are there children from any previous relationships, and if so how will those children be affected by the decision to foster and by the child themself?
3. Provide information on your support networks.
These are the people who you are in regular contact with and who will support you in caring for a foster child. They include family, friends, neighbours and community and religious groups.
4. Give more details of existing children in the household.
Describe their personalities and temperaments, their relationships and any special talents or needs that they might have. How have they been involved in the preparations for fostering, and what is their understanding of the implications of this for themselves?
5. Describe other adult members of the household.
This includes significant adults who don't live in the home. What is their relationship to the family members, their attitude to your intention to foster, and how important is that attitude to you?
6. State the reasons why you have decided to foster
What motivated you to consider applying to foster? Are both partners (where applicable) equally committed to this course of action?
7. Describe the family's lifestyle.
What activities do the family undertake together? Are there any religious or cultural practices that are important? How is affection shown, what roles do different individuals take, what expectations are there and how are these accommodated within the family unit? What personal space do individuals expect within the family? What is the family attitude to food, and to potential eating difficulties that child might bring with them?
More information on foster carer assessment are on our following pages.
